Sunday Soliloquy: Chicago and the Etymology of “Bottom Bitch” January 31, 2010

On a bitter cold winter day like today, it may be plausible to offer excuses for not visiting Chicago. However if there are very important gubernatorial and senate races going on, especially a race in which the best supporters during your presidential campaign are candidates.

One would think that President Barack Obama could at least make an appearance in the Windy City rather than cast absentee ballots for his 2008 presidential campaign vote whores. Quinn, Blago, Giannoulias…these guys worked the streets hard for pimp daddy Barry O.

When he became president, many Chicagoans believed it was highly probable that Obama would follow in the steps of his predecessor George W. Bush by visiting his hometown often. No such luck.

A year into his presidency, there is little presence of Obama in Chicago beyond faded HOPE posters and his empty home in the Hyde Park neighborhood guarded by several police cars.

It hasn’t exactly been sweet home Chicago in Obama’s first year

By Bob Secter

January 18, 2010

…Chicagoans may fancy themselves an unsentimental, nose-to-the-grindstone lot, but folks in Obama’s adoptive hometown indulged in a wave of parochial euphoria with his election. The huge, election night rally in Grant Park was electric with possibilities, not the least of which was the notion that Chicago would be transformed into the nation’s unofficial second capital and reap a big payoff in both stature and dollars.

Even the typically measured Obama appeared to get carried away when he told the Tribune that he hoped to return home every couple of months and considered the South Side his “Kennebunkport,” an allusion to the Maine family compound of President George H.W. Bush.

In hindsight, there was wishful thinking all around. As the nation marks the anniversary of the first Chicago president’s

Obama’s political magic hasn’t kept the state from suffering through a recession like everybody else, and the state and city governments are drowning in red ink.

Chicago’s high-profile bid for the 2016 Olympics went down in flames despite Obama’s personal intervention.

To some, the scandal-marred transfer of Obama’s U.S. Senate seat to Roland Burris may be the most lopsided Chicago trade since Lou Brock for Ernie Broglio.

It’s not that presidents can’t have a palpable impact on their home bases.

Springfield has built a thriving tourist industry around Abraham Lincoln. Tiny Crawford, Texas, got a huge economic shot in the arm whenever President George W. Bush showed up at his Prairie Chapel Ranch for a lengthy stay with an entourage of aides, security personnel, media and onlookers.

Hmmm, sure doesn't look like Chicago to me.

But Chicago is a far cry from Crawford; Plains, Ga., ( Jimmy Carter); or even Little Rock, Ark., ( Bill Clinton). Sizing up what it means for a modern president to hail from an already bustling commercial and cultural center is a more challenging task.

“At the very least, it will become part of the keepsake box of the city, like having Oprah in town or being home to the 1893 World’s Fair,” said Chris Mooney, a political scientist at the University of Illinois’ Springfield campus. “Every big city needs to be noticed now and then. Even if you’re already the prom queen, it’s nice to be complimented.”

Chris Mooney has it wrong. Chicago is not a prom queen at Obama’s ball. It is a bottom bitch- nothing more, nothing less.

Others are beginning to see that this great city, which brought forth our nation’s first African American president is nothing more than one of Barack Obama’s “bottom bitches”. Pimped out and left behind.

What is a ” bottom bitch” you may ask? Why does Afrocity continue to use this seemingly derogatory term?

I can just feel the feminist blogosphere (no pun intended) tense up.

What is wrong with Afrocity? She knows that we never say “bitch”. But this is reality and I did say the “B-word”, particularly the “double B-term” –bottom bitch.

Several years ago I first heard of a bottom bitch while watching the 2005 movie Hustle and Flow featuring actor Terrence Howard as “Djay”. Djay was a pimp desperately striving to make something of himself by laughing a successful hit wrap song while keeping his hoes in line. In one memorable scene Djay refers to one of his best hoes as a bottom bitch after she comes through for him during a frustrating moment when she presents him with a lava lamp to brighten his recording space.

Although the Youtube clip leaves out the bottom bitch term, I wanted you to actually see the scene to in order to create context and mood. Here is Djay’s exact quote:

“That’s a bottom bitch for you. I mean, we got everything we need right here. And all this stuff in this… this little-bitty space, man, it just looks so much bigger now. I’m here trying to squeeze a dollar out of a dime, and I ain’t even got a cent, man.”

I was actually embarrassed at my reaction to the term. I was almost touched when Djay uttered those words. A bottom bitch is someone you can count on the most. Your main bitch. He or she brings home the goods no matter what you do or say to her. This is your main hoe who works the streets for you day and night.

Bottom bitches come in all shapes, sizes and botox enhanced forms. In this photo, it is really hard to tell who excatly the bottom bitch is.

For another take on bottom bitches, I also will let the nice kids of South Park explain that for you. In one episode Butters decides to become a pimp and takes a bottom bitch:

Again, here we see as with the Hustle and Flow definition, that a bottom bitch is the Rock of Gibraltar when it comes to your hoes.

However, that does not necessarily translate into a mutually beneficial relationship for the bottom bitch. Chicago more than any other piece of politically expedient ass in Barack Obama’s life is learning the downside when it comes to being bestowed the coveted presidential bottom bitch title.

Continuing from the Tribune article:

If anything qualifies as Obama-inspired local pork, it could be the administration’s decision to buy the empty Thomson prison in northwestern Illinois as a holding tank for terror suspects now detained at Guantanamo Bay. Obama was likely aware of the prison’s availability because he was a member of the Illinois Senate in 2002 when state officials, in a cost-cutting move, decided not to open the just completed facility.

Wow Obama!!! Thanks for those Gitmo detainees Barry! You sure know how to show the folks back in your home state some love.

In short, Chicago and the State Of Illinois, is still in the state of pre-hope and post-change.

Black on black crime is still a general trend in the city since Obama’s election. Scandalous cell phone videos of youths beating each other to death and failure to secure the 2016 Olympics, did nothing for the image of Chicago. Images of Michelle Obama in he red and black Narcisso Rodriguez election night dress are eclipsed by the blood of Derrion Albert’s beating last September. The premise of Obama’s hope and change message has somehow escaped the boundaries of Chicago. The process has somehow been retarded by a collective feeling of hopelessness and despair.

Obama has forgotten about his Windy City bottom bitch as he is circling the globe making the rounds of with his lesser geographic hoes. Feeling up the electoral vote abundant tits and ass of Ohio and Pennsylvania. Dining in France. Ipod trading in Great Britain. Bowing to and fro and golfing under the Hawaiian sun.

Chicago got the shaft.

The second President Bush was famous for his long, extended trips to Crawford, but Obama in his first year has been to Scandinavia (two trips to Copenhagen, one to Oslo) as often as Chicago.

Shortly after the inauguration last January, the Obama family returned to their Kenwood home for a long Valentine’s weekend. The family hasn’t been back since, though the president returned to Chicago in June to speak at a medical conference and in July for a political fundraiser. On neither occasion did he stay the night.

To be sure, there is an upside in Chicago to having Obama stay away. Presidential motorcades often create monumental traffic tie-ups. The security cordon around the Obama home for that Valentine’s weekend visit extended for a three-block radius.

Jack Cella, general manager of the Seminary Co-op Bookstores around the University of Chicago campus where Obama once taught law, said that for much of last year, the neighborhood was crawling with reporters from around the world, as well as tourists and curiosity seekers. That activity has slowed in the winter months, and it’s not clear if it will resume with warmer weather.

Not long ago, it was common to see the Obamas wandering the neighborhood, but residents are by no means put out about them now staying away, Cella said.

“We’ve still got as much enthusiasm as ever,” he said. “There is still real admiration and affection for the first family. It would be nice to see him, but people realize he’s got an awful lot to [do].”

Of course he won’t stay the night silly Chicago. You are a bottom bitch. Was he ever home when he was the senator from Illinois? No, he played you. Obama will see you again in 2011, when he needs you and you will still be there waiting for him with open arms and legs raising the dead so they can re-elect him. Stop checking. There is no text message for you today. May as well go back to dusting those Barry bobble heads and using those CHICAGO 2016 poster to keep the fireplace going until your pager blows up.

Congratulations Chicago. You are now an etymological inspirator of bottom bitches to come.

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7 Responses to “Sunday Soliloquy: Chicago and the Etymology of “Bottom Bitch””

Awesome AfroCity! Really enjoyed that! Chicago is a bottom bitch….and you are right, they will still be standing there waiting when he calls on their votes. The ignorance is astounding…….Keep it up girl, I’m bookmarking this page…….P.S. I love the Rahm/Pelosi pic…..haven’t seen that one! lol…. from your fellow Leo friend :)

You must live on the North Side. As a South Side resident who has personally experienced the effects of a presidential visit on my neighborhood, I say: let the president stay out of Chicago as much as he wishes! Most South Siders who I know – and these are folks who voted for him for president – agree with me. Two of the three times that he returned to Chicago in the past year, he has jacked up my schedule by tying up traffic….during rush hour to boot. Please don’t wish more gridlock upon us!